Tessa POV
I stared into the fire.
The flames didn't crackle. They whispered. Not in words - but in sounds I almost recognized. A lullaby. A warning.
“Love or life,” I echoed.
The Seer didn’t speak. Just watched. As if she already knew which one I’d choose. I curled my hands into fists, nails biting into skin.
“How many times has this happened?” I asked.
Her head tilted, braids shifting like river reeds in windless water. “This? Only once. You are the only one who lived long enough to reach this part of the thread.”
I swallowed the rising heat in my throat. “So I’m a mistake.”
“No,” she said. “You are a correction.”
“Then what was Velarion?”
Her eyes turned sharper, gold flecks flickering. “A wound.”
A pause. “He was born of broken oaths. A child conceived in sacrifice, raised in silence. The Council took pieces of ancient bloodlines, bent them through time and death, and forced him into being. Not as a weapon. As a gatekeeper.”
“For what?”
“The Otherworld. The Hollow Between. The real
